scattered technology news

Dudeman says

I don’t know why Mac users must glorify their computers even when they’re being screwed over by Apple.

‘Apple call them notebook cause they don’t want you to put it on your lap’

What?! It’s a portable computer! What if I want to use it on the bus or while lying on the couch? I would protest against shoddily built, super expensive products rather than put up with their faults and recommend them to other people!

‘And I know that Photoshop is MUCH more efficient on a MAC then a PC’

Perhaps it was a spyware- virus-ridden PC? These days, processors run at speeds of a gabazillion Mhz, and with enough ram; to say that Photoshop is ‘MUCH’ more efficient is an exaggeration. Perhaps, there is a small difference. The curious can look up benchmarks on Google.

I did not mean to attack anyone, neither am I anti-Mac (I endorsed 13″ MacBooks in a previous post), some of the statements made are just plain misleading.

adam says

oops 8 statements above.

John says

let me add *any notebook on their lap for a long period of time

lolwut? says

Aris, the 2 rigs have almost the same specs. If its a hardware req issue, the m1530 wil definetely run unless its not available on windows.

Lol, you guys aren’t wearing pants when you use your MBP lol! On my bus to school, I often play crysis on my lap! All I wear is some relatively thin jeans and some underwear. There is no way someone can get burned by this heat. Sure its hotter than other laptops but far from unbearable. Unless you are EXTREMELY sensitive to heat. The only REAL place I feel that gets closest to the unbearable level is the plate above the keyboard that connects the screen to the body and the underneath area near the vents.

neverwrong...ever says

from personal experience, I know that the Dell customer service is excellent, (assuming you reach a technician) but its true that there are more often quirks in dells than in Macs. its a factor to consider when purchasing them; the MBP is thinner and feels sturdier. and honestly, 1080 resolution is kind of ridiculous when considering that there are 60″ Televisions with the exact same resolution.
things like the webcam are really pretty petty (because .7 MP is a major difference; no webcam will display you in HD, keep it real =P)
on a side note, apple has ways to compensate for the price difference. I saw the other day, that they discount an additional $300 if you purchase a flash ipod. if I was offered a $200 32gb ipod touch, I know I’d take it.

on a side note, ‘not being able to afford a mac’ isn’t always applicable. with financial aid from a school, its possible to pick up a mac at 2/3 of the price slashed.

donthate08ter says

@ neverwrong
I’d like to know what college you’re going to that gives you a 67% discount on Apple computers. I’m going to Stanford in the fall, and I did a price comparison for both the Dell XPS M1530 and MacBook Pro

Zach says

So I’m traditionally a pc user but I would like to switch to Mac. However i need to run PC only programs like Autodesk AutoCad and inventor among other things so my proffessor recomended I stick to a pc. I am a computer animation major btw. I was wonderinng whether it would be smart to listen to the professor and get the dell 1530, rather than sort of chance it with the Mac and Boot camp. I guess i’m just worried that for the price, i would be making a mistake in choosing the mac and boot camp to run the pc only programs.

John says

For Autocad, if its not 3D Intensive you can dual boot OS using Fusion.

John says

nice comparison! I have been looking into the 1530 now for about two hours of extensive net research as an alternative for my crappy quality mbp.

You are missing a few points:

1. the mbp has serious display issues. if you neet good colour quality, don’t go for the mbp. if you start reading the edid info out of your display and check on EXACTLY what apple builds into these things you will realise, that you are beeing ripped off. my display is a lg display (in a brand new mbp) and only supports 262k colours and only has a contrast of 400:1, instead of the promised millions of colours and 500:1 contrast. if you check up on the other 4 possible displays you can get shipped in your mbp you will see that all have worse technical data than apple claims. AND: you will have real problems keeping some colours apart. besides: it’s a rip off.

2. sound issues: the mbp has a serious issue with the sound chip which is mounted too near to the power translation input thingy. the result: I know three people personally by now who have a very disturbing whining noise. several exchange attempts have failed. and nearly every mbp has a loud cracking sound when you mute the system with earplugs. That hurts, seriously. so you can not use it for working on sound, either.

3. apple service vs dell service. this is self explainatory

4. just a small list of faults i have with my mbp:

dvd writer doesn’t work, “a” and “1″ key hardly work, the display is not quite even in lighting quality, colour issues, sound issues, vga port is broke and the whole casing is not quite straight. and i look after my mbp better than my balls.

so: as long as apple still continues producing crap quality i will run os on pc hardware. the dell 1530 looks most promising and with dual boot you can work with another os just in case your main os froze or broke. you can install any OS on a 1530, there are many many good guides with promising results.

by oliver - 7/15/2008 6:39 pm

Hmm, as much as I doubt that you are telling the truth, but there is no way your MBP has THAT much problems, its either you are a troll or just trying to make the MBP look bad. I know MBP has issues, but it doesn’t have THAT much issues especially from a single unit.

Tedson says

I’m getting ready to go to school, and i have been looking into laptops. I’m going into landscape architecture, and they use a software called arch-view and arch-gis. I have had my heart set on a Mac book Pro for some time now, but than i found out the software is meant for PC. I was a little disappointed that i may not be able to get a MBP, but than a buddy of mine told me about boot camp. He said “It runs windows on the MBP so you can use PC software.” I got to thinking hey it may work out, but i was still worried so i called the company that makes the Arch software. (ESRI) I talked to a representative that told me the software is meant for a PC, but will work on a MBP. He than went on to say the software would not be guaranteed on the MBP. (RISKY) I have been up all night worrying (pretty stupid thing to worry about) I don’t want to spend 2700 dollars on a MBP and come to find out it won’t work. That is when i searched on Google to compare the MBP to Dell and i found this article/blog and read everyone’s opinion on MBP and the Dell XPS M1730. I know very little about the dell, but it is starting to look better every minute! I would like to know more about it if anyone would like to tell me. I’m putting my trust in whoever would like to write back that they’re knowledge will help in giving me knowledge so that i can decide. Thanks for your time!

John says

Your software will have a 99% chance of running. My only concern is since its a 3D software, some features might not work like for example if the system requirement requires a Nvidia Quadro or some sort of non-gaming graphics card then some function wont work.

I managed to run SolidWorks through boot camp and so far only 1 function wont be working cause it requires a Nvidia Quadro GPU.

To make it simple for you, any program can work in BootCamp because Intel Mac uses the same processor and chipset as its competitors.

John says

Okay, justinproblem, since money is not an issue, you are going to multi task, and it is for college. I definetly recommend the MBP because my friend has a XPS the 13″ version and my MBP Battery life blow away his XPS battery life.

v says

I was expecting a comparision sheet an dLOL, I find a battle field, hehe, :D
I use a Windows Desktop which I built, A Mac Pro at College, a Windows dumb ass machine at Work, A Mac Book Pro which a friend owns, and my sisters simple HP Lappie with Vista. Dabbled with i-Macs since they had G4’s and using them now with 24″ screens an dcored2Duo processors,
all these so called Mac fanatics cried at their top voices that Intel Chips sucked, an dthat G4s and G5s were so awesome, hehe, :d and today all that comes out form Apple include their tiny warrior Mac Mini has a Intel Chip in it.
Well I loev computers, building mini clusters, do design, video and bein at a film school, and working with production and animation houses, get to work on teh most bizare hardcore extreem machines, takle 32Gb Ram for example! on
Such flexibilty existed only on Windows and Unix systems shipped by IBM, now Apple joined teh bandwagoin a few years back, after adopting Intel Chips,

So my verdict, a computer is like the love of your life, unless you are too dumb to know what it is, and we all ahve preferences, go to hell if you stand on either side of this Os war, I am happy using both, and love them all,
But if you say, Dude I am not sure what to buy, the answer is simple, what you want,
If its your day to day use, e-mail, blogging, video, watch shit, download crap, you better get a Mac, it takes teh shit, an dkeeps mum, and yeah it will please you fancy by popping out a Cd if it has any malware or suspected virus,
The only reason WE use Macs is the Softwares, being in Film, and Video, can’t do without Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro, and a lot of very usefull high standard softwares, for your kin information it is not just teh OS or the so advertised Hardware, it’s the UNique fuckin Softwares that make us buy macs, and of course they are the flashy things, so some style conscious numbers do pop in, an dhey no doubts the Mac Book Pro looks cool,

So teh only things you have to look at, what you want, what money have you got, and how soon are you gonna upgrade, the rest is useless, if u got the brains you can build super computer out of you sony playstations, end of day all that is inside is Made in China, Made by you knwo who hardware manufacturers, and people liek me buy it from them and build their own machines, and hey forgot to tell you Mac OSx runs better on Windows, and yeha it can eb done, hehe, :D
so go ahead plunge into whatever you want, ahve fun, and don’t ya fuckin waste webspace with your silly so called technical explainations to which computer manufacturer is better,
Adios,
Much love & Peace,